


Right Here, Always Here

by ihoardlibrarians



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce, PIERCE Tamora - Works
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihoardlibrarians/pseuds/ihoardlibrarians
Summary: Prompt: Briar gets word that someone he used to run with is on his third strike. Tris goes with for moral support.All three girls knew it when Briar read something he didn’t like. His feelings pulsed down their magical ties, first confusion, then concern, and finally helplessness. Sandry and Daja sent back their own waves of comfort and openness, a willingness to talk if he wanted it, but they knew that Tris would beat them to it. That was okay. They may be a circle, but sometimes Tris and Briar were a world of their own.





	Right Here, Always Here

            “Tris has been home for over an hour,” Briar said to the glass dragon roosting in his shakkan. “What’s she doing?” Chime clinked at him before taking off from her perch and soaring back into the house. Briar scowled at his vine covered hands. His tattoos shifted in the sunlight, sprouting thorns to reflect his mood. He leaned over the letter he received just that morning, the ink smudged and paper creased from being clenched in his hands.

            Something kept distracting him from reading that letter for the hundredth time. It was a smell that reminded him of early summer, happy gardens, home, and underneath it all there was Tris. He recognized his favorite spice cake just as Chime dropped a piece of it on top of the letter.

            Briar picked up the small cake in his flowering hands and felt possibility bloom in his chest for the first time since the letter arrived. _Coppercurls_.

_Right here_ , she thought to him. _Always here_. She rested a small hand on his shoulder and leaned over him to read what had plagued him all day. Her wire-framed glasses slipped down to the tip of her long nose. Briar grinned. Tris would see. She knew the secret places in his mind that Sandry and Daja shied away from.

            Her grip on his shoulder tightened as she read. “Oh, Briar.”

            “I know.” He leaned back against her. This was okay. Tris was his anchor just as he was her ocean.

            “The Thief Lord? Are they sure?” Tris picked the letter up and held it to the sun, searching for a sign of forgery, of a prank. “Why would they even write to you about him? You were just a boy when you were in the Lightnings.”

            “You remembered the name of my gang?” he asked, oddly touched.

            “I remember everything about you, don’t avoid my question.”

            Briar tensed against her and pulled his mind in on itself. Tris pinched his earlobe to interrupt his retreat. _None of that, laddybuck_.

_You sound like Rosethorn_.

            “No need to insult me,” Tris chided. “Why is the Mutabir of Hajra writing to you about the Thief Lord?” Tris circled around the worktable to face Briar. Her storm-gray eyes were soft for once, but her chin was stubborn. Briar traced an x on the web between his thumb and index finger, where his first capture was marked. Memory was threatening to bubble up to the surface, but he clamped a lid down on it.

            “When Rosethorn and me were in Sotat, we passed through Deadman’s District. It was… exactly how I remembered. I was fifteen around then and we had Evvy with us. I ran into some gang kids and asked about him. No one knew who he was. Someone else took his place, called himself the Rogue.” Briar shook his head and popped the piece of spice cake Chime brought earlier into his mouth. Chewing gave him an excuse not to keep talking.

            Tris reached across the table for his hands. She thought the Thief Lord was a nasty piece of work from everything Briar told her about gang life in Hajra, but he meant something to Briar and that meant something to Tris. Briar swallowed and squeezed her hand in return.

            “At first I thought that Rogue killed him, you know? Claiming his place as leader of the gangs, following the code.” Tris nodded along even though she didn’t entirely get it. “But this? That he just gave up and left Deadman’s District altogether?” Briar took a deep breath. He had to remain calm, or else the plants around him would get as worked up as he was. “He was a king and he walked away. Why?”

            “Do you want to go ask him?”

            Briar blinked at her, confused.

            “We could go to Sotat, you could ask him in person,” Tris explained.

            “What? No, that’s ridiculous, you’re leaving for—”

            “Lightsbridge can wait. Do you want to go?”

            Briar looked down at their hands, fingers twined around each other, his flowers turning copper like Tris’ hair.

_I can do anything with you at my side, Coppercurls. Even confront The Thief Lord_.


End file.
